Ever delve inside your home network routers and use the hidden security settings that can lock down a network nice and tight? Most people never do. Andy Walker reveals 10 secrets on how to easily access your router's security settings.

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Most people who install a home network never delve inside the netherworld of
security settings on their router. Who can blame them—it’s about as
frightening as putting your hand in a shoebox full of rabid gerbils.
Nevertheless, it’s worth the effort if you know what you’re doing.

That said, here are 10 router settings you can use to make your network more
secure. For the purposes of this article, I used a popular router, the DLink
DI-524, to show you how to engage the features, because this router
doesn’t bite—usually.

To use these features, you need to get inside your router and access its
control panel. To do this, type the router’s internal IP address into your
web browser on a computer on your network like this address for DLink routers:
http://192.168.0.1.
For Linksys routers, it’s
http://192.168.1.1,
and
http://192.168.2.1
for several other brands. Check your router’s manual if none of these work
for you, or look for the Default Gateway IP address when you use the
ipconfig /all command (mentioned in tip #5).

1. Turn off UPnP.

UPnP, or universal plug and play, is a handy feature that lets
devices on your network self-configure on a network, but it’s also a
security hazard. A Trojan horse or virus on a computer inside your network could
use UPnP to open a hole in your router’s firewall to let outsiders in. So
it’s a good idea to turn off UPnP when not in use. To do that, click the
Tools tab then the Misc button, and click Disabled next to the UPNP listing. Be
sure to click Apply to update the router with this new setting. See Figure
1.

Figure 1 Turn off UPnP
in your router to stop malware on an infected computer from opening holes in the
router’s firewall.